Crawl Out Through The Fallout
by SoleCourier
Summary: The events of Fallout 4, but with the addition of a mailman and a vault dweller. Stop me if you've heard this one, a courier, a sole survivor and a lone wanderer walk into a bar...
1. Sole Survivor

Brushing ash and soot from the knees of his trousers, the man stood and turned to face the light.

The sun was wan, pale. Its circumference obscured by a low-hanging haze of woodsmoke and eastern fog, so that it appeared as merely a brighter speck in the otherwise featureless grey sky. The man ran his fingers idly along the contours of his belt, battered dry leather studded with eyelets and an assortment of mismatched wing nuts and bolts. He loosened the clasp on a compact leather pouch, one of many about his waist, and produced his crumpled packet of Grey Tortoises. Around his feet, acidic rain pooled in alkaline patterns, filling the cracks in the dead earth, slithering into crevasses or trickling in rivulets over wind-worn stone. He opened the packet and poised the cigarette carefully between his gloved fingers, hands stiff, careful not to let the loose tobacco slip free from its paper sleeve, sheltering it from the stinging drizzle. He pinched off the end and lit it with a single precious match, cupping his hands around the flame to ensure his success. He inhaled lightly, savoring the flavor of the rare, stale tobacco.

Jack Deckard, newly widowed and temporarily childless, had been walking for longer than he cared to count. He knew the Pip-Boy around his wrist was tracking his every step. Every tired vmillisecond. He ignored it. The thing chafed, anyway. It weighed down his offhand as cupped his gloved palm under the battered wooden forestock of the stubby bolt action rifle, cradling it in his arms like a babe.

Shaun.

He put his son from his mind stubbornly. Now was the time for movement, tactical and deliberate. A slow but steady trajectory towards a place the settlers of this new world called Diamond City. The "great green jewel" of the Commonwealth. We'll see.

Once he got there, it would be time to talk. Time to ask the hard questions. There was no doubt in his mind that he was prepared to give way to cruelty, to rough violence, should the need arise. To get the answers he needed, he would risk all. He would find his son, and he would avenge his wife.

Nora.

Black bile in the back of his throat. A cold flickering flame that would not be quenched until he had faced her killer. He recalled the rough, dirty face. Seamed by weariness and war. Unchecked stubble beneath the impassive frown and uncaring eyes as he'd watched Nora die, only lowering his weapon when he was sure she wouldn't rise again. Efficient and detached. A soldier.

But not like him. He'd brushed away the possibility of there being any common ground between them. He pushed those thoughts aside, despite their persistence, even as he cut a bloody swath through the wooded regions to the southeast of Vault 111. Holding a stick-thin raider by a clump of filthy hair as he died, demanding answers as the man gasped red wet breaths. Ignoring his own interrogation, pleading instead for a final hit of jet through lips flecked with bloody froth.

He'd killed them all, picking his way through withering gunfire, past gutted sedans and makeshift barriers of shingle and steel rebar. Firing with quick and deadly efficiency, the Pip-Boy warbling mildly on his wrist to notify and remedy occasional errors in his positioning and sight picture. He'd swept through the hollow doorways of a half-dozen of their dens over the course of those first four delirious days, kicking over coolers full of narcotics to get at them, coldly executing survivors. A multicolored assortment of uppers and downers and glinting inhalers clattering across the floor as they bled out onto the rotten timbers and splintered concrete. His efforts proved fruitless. The raiders died with unanswered questions and protests of innocence on their lips.

On the morning of the fifth day he'd found himself on the fringes of the ruins of Lexington, studying a squat brown building. Hollow windows like eyes, ringed with the rust-orange sweat of corrosion. He'd observed the restaurant for over thirty minutes, his customary time. Crouched uncomfortably behind the gutted, windworn husk of an ancient police cruiser. No movement. He checked the Pip-Boy and side-stepped the hood of the car. As he paced forward he scanned his sectors in slow counter-clockwise sequence, swinging his rifle left to scan the uneven ground that sloped away from the skeleton of an army personnel carrier. Mangled tracks beside upturned plastic crates overgrown with dark wet lichen. He rotated. No threat from the right - the west - thanks to partial concealment from the main road via a windswept hedgerow draped by a stray tarp. The tattered nylon flapped against the brisk headwind, pale faded blue like a cyanotic ghost. He stepped beneath the shade of the canvas awning, pressing himself against cool brick. Crude markings above the door meant raiders. Skulls and jeering profanities. But these were old, flaky brown hieroglyphs mostly erased by time and the stiff salt breeze. He listened for a moment, then stepped carefully through the shattered brown glass of the front door, keeping his weight even so as not to disturb the jagged carpet of loose glass that dusted the faded rubber floor-mat which read "Sullivan's Bar and Grill". Rows of tables jutted up from the slurry of trash and debris, evenly interspersed by wooden benches padded with red polyester. Corpses sat slumped onto checkered tabletops or lay bundled around the bases of barstools rusted solid. His time in the army had taught him more than enough about corpses. The way they decayed, over time. Maybe it really had been two hundred years.

Two hundred and ten. He tried not to think about it. But these oxidized remnants, brittle bones wrapped in tissue-paper clothes, they had been here for a long, long time. Frozen in time where they'd died in a flash of atomic fire. He silently passed a row of cadavers dressed in their Sunday best, making his way over to the wide steel door that led to the kitchens. They grinned up at him blindly as he stifled a sigh and adjusted his grip on the rifle. Squinting into the murk beyond the threshold. A labyrinth of pipes bolted to the low ceiling, leading to a series of industrial sinks. Faucet hoses hung in a row, dripping irradiated water with inexorable rhythmic sureness. Like the exposed entrails of a desiccated steel beast.

Something clattered. The clumsy crunching of bootsoles on loose glass. Jack ducked low and padded across the wax-stripped linoleum floor. Heel-toe, trying to keep his silhouette small. Hunched between rows of dull aluminum fryers and battered coolers. Like it wouldn't be a fucking turkey shoot for an intruder if they rounded the swinging double doors to the store room before he had managed to cross the room. The ground was littered with debris, shreds of yellow newspaper and silver serving foil rattling around his ankles in swirling eddies like dead leaves. The tile was pocked with ragged holes of various size, black and lumpy, the laminate marred by a dozen cooking fires. An empty can of Pork'n'Beans clinked across the floor as it brushed his boot. He stopped cold, lowering himself to a crouch. Feet and ankles really starting to ache now. He hugged the butt of the rifle to his shoulder and swept the skeletal iron sight along the passageway. Beyond the translucent plastic windows of the twin doors, a single fluorescent bulb threw hard shadows against a stack of rust-eaten steel vats. He straightened up, still straining to hear. There was no other sound besides the faint metallic flickering of the ancient light ballast. He pushed through the twin doors into a concrete washroom. Grimy mops padded at the handle with packaging tape, frayed adhesive rendered black by filthy, tired hands. The dangling mop heads brought forth images of a raider camp in the Concord woods, desiccated heads in a ghastly row. He shuddered and stepped over a coil of hose, listening and pressing slowly against the half-open steel exit door.

Grey steel clapped against his forehead. A white flash, room suddenly askew. Jack gritted his teeth, hand instinctually rising to clasp the side of his skull. The rifle hung slack in his other fist. The door swung wide, a massive form filling the blinding frame of sunlight. Hulking and bristling with metal. A gauntleted fist struck him center mass, winding him. He doubled over, wheezing, his rifle swinging free by its tattered sling. He felt for his pistol, fingers scrabbling for purchase, as a boot rose to meet him. Leg sheathed at the shin in corrugated aluminum, the kind they used to use for tool sheds and budget housing. Lengths of steel rebar askew at every angle. Brutal and effective. A size fifteen steel-toe connected with his gut like a box truck. He rolled over onto his back, gasping but not really breathing, sucking air and clutching at his holster. Please god please fucking fuck. Get the clasp open, get the gun up before this freak knight in roofers' armor decides to finish the job. He glanced upward through a fog of pain and paused.

His assailant stood an easy eight-foot-plus, green-skinned and broad as a Corvega. It held a length of nail-studded plywood as long as Jack's leg. The flickering light from the hall behind him illuminated the reddened eyes. Intermittent and fleeting glimpses into slitted pools of madness. He raised the pistol, cocking the hammer back as the Pip-boy beep-beeped cheerily for him to readjust. He lowered the sights slightly and squeezed the trigger. The weapon bucked in his fist, barking hot fire a dozen times, brass clinking into the grimy drain below the hanging row of mops. Jagged dark holes stitched the unadorned mass of scarified muscle across the beast's torso. Tendrils of black blood oozing from the taut green tissue. More like candle wax than the red spray of blood that typically resulted from pegging a raider. The armored giant staggered back, loosing an inhuman bellow from its ragged, lipless mouth, teeth gnashing like tombstones. It clutched at its chest and lowered its gaze, piercing him with animal eyes. Only hate lay behind the constricted black pupils.

"Stupid human! You are weak." It straightened and hoisted its club as Jack scrambled backward, empty magazine clattering across the pocked concrete. The thing came at him like a wall of flesh and steel.

"Your kind will die with you. The Commonwealth is ours!"

Jack slapped a fresh magazine into the pistol and loosed a trio of rounds into the beasts knee. It howled again and clutched furiously at its leg as Jack crammed the 10mm back into its holster, grasping the splintered wooden stock of the rifle and bringing the stubby black barrel up to bear. Marigold light enveloped them for a fraction of a moment, filling the closet like a flashbulb camera. The monster collapsed to its knees, sinking to the cement with a groan. The smoldering hole in its cheek didn't bleed, even after it struck the floor face-first with a shudder. Jack stood shakily and brushed himself off. He stepped through the thin tendril of blue smoke and out into the stark overcast glow of the Commonwealth found a concealed spot a block north and set up a temporary camp. Leaning against a broken jersey barrier and exhaling a thin puff of nicotine smoke. The tobacco had been jostled about in his hip pouch during his encounter, so he had to hold it at the right angle. When his mind strayed, it tumbled out onto his lap in ragged shreds of black and yellow-brown, eliciting a soft curse. He shook his head, then winced, nestling back against the cool, rough concrete and cupping his swollen forehead in his hand, pressing the supple leather of his glove against the bruised flesh. His Pip-Boy had identified his attacker as a "super mutant", after some fiddling with the knobs and buttons that studded the surface of the wrist-mounted computer. Some sort of mutated humanoid, initially developed by the military and evolved over centuries to rise to the challenge post-nuclear life. Brutal and unfettered by intellect or advanced problem-solving skills. Raw, unadulterated strength, carelessly patented two centuries ago by none other than Uncle Sam. Jack drew on the crooked cigarette and exhaled the smoke with a tired sigh. There was more to this post-war Boston than met the eye. He was a stranger here. A relic of a gentler age. The rest of this world had a considerable evolutionary head-start on him, it seemed.

He flicked the yellow cigarette butt into the pitted dirt of the median and stood, retrieving his rucksack from its makeshift rebar peg. He ducked into the dim sunlight from beneath the drooping orange tarp, turning an eye upward to the cloud-smeared sky as he adjusted his leathers. His gloved fingers paused briefly as they brushed the bolt studded padding on his right shoulder. An ill-gotten raider camp souvenir. He cracked his knuckles and worked the bolt of the rifle, brass checking it. A glint of brass from a .308 cartridge, like soft gold in the stifled midday light. Satisfied, he swung the rifle up over his shoulder and set out along the ruined highway towards Diamond City, the hushed crackling bars of Chopin's No.2 Nocturne drifting softly ahead of him along the tarnished blacktop.


	2. Courier Six

**(AN: so quick FYI to everyone before we get going. You'll notice that each chapter from here on out is written by a different character. Each of those characters are also going to be written by us three individual authors, to really give different voices and perspectives to Sole, Courier 6 and Wanderer. We're pretty excited to see how it goes and hopefully it's as awesome for you as it is for us. This does also mean that updates will be slow coming, so bear with us! Let us know what you think, we're always open to feedback.)**

Of all the things in the world I thought I would miss, the Mojave was nowhere on the list. Sunset Sarsaparilla, yes. Boone, almost certainly. Even roving bands of mercenaries looking to play a rousing game of Ambush. But the actual Mojave? That confusing bitch mother of a hellscape with radscorpions spawning out of goddamn nowhere? With things called Nighstalkers in every single cave, a Vault with living plant people, and an underground city dedicated to fighting deathclaws? Hell no.

At least, that's what I'd thought. Up until i'd fallen into a radioactive puddle and woken up whatever mutated crab hellspawn that lurks in the goddamn forest.

"Son of Atom, Rex, maybe I should have listened to Boone." I calmly wipe my precious silver plated handgun on my already nasty raider pants. After bullets hadn't made a mark, I'd turned to just hitting the thing with Maria. Which had done approximately jack-all until Rex had decided to jump in.

Rex makes a huff of agreement, rolling his eyes in that precious doggy way that confirms how stupid I am.

"Why yes, I am the very best master you've ever had," I respond dryly, putting Maria away and checking my pip-boy. Shockingly, still on course to the central Commonwealth.

I'm just about to return to our certain death march when a deep rumble that shakes the earth itself starts up.

I'd like to say that I bravely faced whatever was coming, drew my shotgun and screamed obscenities into the face of whatever beast this godforsaken forest could spit out before dying an honorable death. But I instead dive behind a fallen tree, squeaking out a prayer. Like a badass, you know.

The rumbling subsides and Rex, precious robot dog, huffs again and nudges me, drawing my attention to the clearing ahead.

A man, not a hundred meters away, clad in an obscenely tight blue jumpsuit lined with gold, short blonde hair and obnoxious pre war glasses, looking vaguely horrified.

A vault dweller!

"Hey look at that nerd," I poke Rex, watching as the guy stumbles towards ruins virtually indistinguishable from the rest of the ruins surrounding us. Damn hellscape. I miss the Mojave. "You think we should follow him?"

Rex whines in a way that I would call empathy for the poor bastard looking more dazed than Arcade after taking Jet,if not for the fact that his oil needed to be changed twenty miles ago.

"No, you're right. We must continue onward and expand my overreaching control to the poor bastards of this overly blue land. Wouldn't want to be late for an appointment with mayor Hancock."

That settled, we continue creeping in the general direction of where my Pip-boy says the town of Goodneighbor is.

I suppose this is where I introduce myself and my whole tragic backstory instead of boring descriptions of trudging through a monotonous landscape filled with creepy British robots in some kind of greenhouse and garbage.

I'm Lucy Grey, fabled Courier Six and the queen of New Vegas. Shot in the head by some dipshit in a checkered suit, left for dead, the whole typical "hero faces adversity" backstory.

I've faced Boomers, Marked Men, the Legion and only pussied out once or twice. Maybe three times if I'm being modest. Even drove out the NCR from the entire Mojave with only rioting and general mayhem, not a single death. I've kept the peace for about seven years with only minimal incident.

So why am I here in this abysmal waste? I got it into my pretty little head to expand my influence and start trades and relations with the east. I've made worse decisions, but this one is at least in the top friggin' ten. So was the brilliant idea to head out without my usual sniper companion and trash lover, Craig Boone, formerly of the NCR Infantry. No Boone, I'll be fine. How bad can it be? I'm the most charming girl you know, i'll have them eating out of the palm of my hands. Certainly won't have to execute multiple Raiders like it's my fucking job. Or burn through my stimpak stash worse than Cass burning through our liquor supply.

The truth is though? I'm bored. Me and the crew, we can destroy any threats long before they get to us. And that's not how I live. I crave action, a bit of stealthy combat. I'm ready to stir up some goddamned trouble. From what I heard, nasty, bad trouble is exactly what the Commonwealth specializes in. Raiders, mysterious organizations, extra strength Deathclaws, exactly the kind of trouble I need and Boone hates. Won't even let me go out to kill assassin squads anymore. We singlehandedly took control of Hoover Dam but Atom forbid I try to leave the Strip and go shoot things.

But Boone had to stay behind and run Vegas for me with the very unwilling assistance of the King. So here I am, under the guise of diplomacy and treaties, ready to start the stealthy murder. Rex was ordered to stay with me and 'keep an eye on me'. Nice try, honey. If Rex didn't get distracted by things like shiny objects and hats, it would almost be a smart plan. Trust Boone not to think of that.

I tap the screen of my pip boy, biting back a grin. Goodneighbor, dirty, lawless, shifty Goodneighbor, here I come.

...,..,...

"Not for nothing, Rex, but maybe you should stop ripping throats out," I observe, nudging the dead body of yet another Raider covered in it's own blood. "Save some for me, at least. You can't be the only one engaging in murder, it messes up my whole mythos."

Rex growls, spitting out a piece of meat I decide not to look too closely at, before pacing ahead of me up the cobbled streets. It looks like he's following a red brick line. Which is stupid. He can't see red.

"Look it's fine if you want to kill things but I already have one Boone, I don't need a dog version, all silent and ignoring everything I have to say like I'm a babbling idiot. Besides, it's just a raider, don't waste your energy on mauling. I thought I trained you better than that," I skirt around a mole rat studiously ignoring me. "Do you even know where you're going?"

Kicking at the red line in the pavement, I instinctively drop into a crouch as I hear a Super mutant voice in the near distance. Something about dumb humans and a heartbreaking lack of green stuff I hate super mutants with a passion. But I suppose I can thank Atom there's no Nightkin. After a particularly noteworthy run in with one in a blonde wig and painted nails, I'm not inclined to meet any more. I'll probably never get over seeing it cry orange tears.

Blowing a piece of hair that escaped my beret from my eyes as the mutants continue a search, not coming anywhere near me, I fire off a shot from Maria into the air. And just like that, it starts. Shotgun in hand, taking careful aim at whatever mutant Rex hasn't dispatched, firing devastating shots into whatever limb is easily accessible. More than a few Mutie heads explode in a shower of green gore and yellowed bone chips. It's over in moments, and anticlimactic at that.

The street, moments before patrolled by seven foot tall green men and sadly bare of any blood, looks like a rabid Deathclaw was let loose. Chunks of shot of Mutie flesh spray out from the bodies they came from, blackish green blood starting to pool and coagulate into the cobblestone grooves that pass for a street in this city. It's beautiful.

"You think that vault guy is ok? He looked pretty fucked up in the head, like Boone levels of fucked up. Maybe we should have said hi." I put away both guns, stepping delicately over a stinking mutant corpse. Library, a sign above them reads, lit in the night by a trash can fire one of them had the presence of mind to start.

Rex licks his chops of blood almost contemplatively before whining, looking at the green hunk of meat before us longingly.

"I know, looting is fun. But I have to go meet this Hancock guy and damned if I'm going to be any later than the day and a half we already are. That's your fault, by the way. I could have made it here days ago if not for your fluids leaking, again."

A glowing neon sign meters away alerts me that our destination is, in fact, right ahead, a dismal alleyway leading to a boarded up door hiding the supposed den of debauchery known as Goodneighbor. Excellent timing, that.

I feel more than hear the crunching of footsteps behind me, and given my proclivity into diving behind shit at the first sign of danger, like a true badass legend, I almost don't see who it is. The leather armor, studded with metal makes a soft jingle, and the worn yellow helmet stands out like a beacon in the dark. But there's no mistaking the tall, lanky figure I saw pop out of the ground only four days prior. It's Vault boy, alright, looking indistinguishable from the raiders and gunners swarming the area. Even the flannel shirt and leather gloves look ripped off a corpse. Wasteland chic.

I decide to keep quiet, watching him as he slowly makes his way down the alley, pausing every few feet to glance at the pip-boy on his wrist. I almost don't notice the pistol strapped to his waist, or the heavily modded rifle on his back. Somehow, in the span of a few days, he got badass.

"What the hell," I hiss to Rex, so as not to draw Vault boy's attention. "Four days in the Mojave and all I had was my shotgun and some shitty leather armor. This kid is fucking packing."

The aforementioned 'kid' keeps creeping down the alley and out of my line of sight, looking like he's got places to be. I know the exact feeling.

So I unconsciously start to follow, keeping to the shadows and low to the ground. This guy is definitely trained, reminding me of the NCR rangers I used to follow around to keep my sneaking up to proper _not getting murdered_ standard. But he also has the unmistakable air of inexperience with a Wasteland city, not staying close enough to the walls, not having a hand close enough to that pistol at all times. I watch as he pauses in front of a Super Mutant corpse I just pumped full of lead and quickly steps over it, moving along in a fashion that at least tells me he's met a Mutie. And recently, at that. I've seen that look of trauma on many a person's face.

I forget all about my meeting with Hancock, dropping all pretense of even being subtle about stalking this guy. But I'm sorely intrigued. Who the fuck is this guy? How did he get all this gear? Can't be just off of raiders. No raider would spend their precious time fixing up a sniper rifle when a sawed off shotgun does the trick just fine and doesn't require a steady hand not affected by a hit of Jet.

It's almost fun, following him past the pink-purple neon lights of Goodneighbor, around a corner where I know some of those wannabe Raider assholes are holed up. My hand creeps towards my favorite rifle, Dinner Bell, and no, you can't ask why, always strapped across my back. If newbie here can't handle them, me and Rex can.

I shouldn't have worried.

This newbie who not a hundred feet back looked like he could have easily been overtaken with a surprise ambush, drops behind an abandoned car, whipping out his pistol like he's done this a thousand times. Without any hesitation, he fires rounds into each Gunner wandering the area. Heads explode. It's fucking great. Not Boone great, or me with my Caravan shotgun great, but not bad, either.

Except for one. He just aims for the kneecap on that guy, blowing it out and dropping the figure to the ground, howling out a curse I file away for future reference just due to the creativity. Never heard of a Mirelurk claw being used that way.

Vault guy emerges from hiding, storming up to the guy and gripping him tightly by the shirtfront. He spits out some question I can't quite make out, looking half feral in the process.

I start to reconsider my notions of this guy. Maybe it's not Vault guy at all. Maybe it is a raider with an uncanny resemblance to him. Maybe Vaultie flipped out, it's normal for most of them. Maybe-

The Gunner doesn't answer satisfactorily, apparently, as Helmet head drops him onto the ground, pulling the pistol back out and shooting the poor dope point blank in the forehead.

Oh fuck.

What the hell.

Maria slides out of my hip holster and into my hands without a second thought, and I continue to follow after this maniac for another block. Fuck meeting him, fuck all of that. I don't like people who kill for fun. We had plenty of that misery with the Legion in the Mojave, and plenty more with the Fiends in Vault 3. I saw what a guy named Cook Cook did to a rival raider girl and it's not an experience I'm inclined to repeat.

He rounds the corner out of the back streets and out into a very open, very spacious area. No chance of a surprise attack, then.

A pond, eerily silent, surrounded by that red brick line I've subconsciously been noting the entire time, a strange spot of serenity in a city left to rot. No ghouls, no loud Raider boasting. Total silence. I couldn't have picked a worse spot to shoot a guy. Except for maybe Jacobstown. Gunfire pisses off Bighorners like nothing else. Stampedes and gored Nightkin for days.

But instead of stopping and acting overtly evil like I would clearly prefer, he walks towards the silent pond, towards a covered few steps leading to a pair of red doors which, in turn seem to lead into the earth.

Rex, hackles raised already, starts to creep forward with me, into the open space. I hate spaces like this more than anything. No cover, nothing to hide behind and take potshots at Vaultie. Fuck this guy.

We make haste around the bend of the pond to the doors without incurring the wrath of some hidden supermutant with a minigun, only to find the barrel of a rifle aimed straight at our faces. Er, snout, in one case.

"Want to tell me who you are and why you've been following me for the past block?" Vault boy's muffled voice asks, sounding not amused in the slightest.

Past _four_ blocks, I mentally correct, before clearing my throat, stalling to think of a half decent excuse.

"I'm not in a good mood, answer me."

"Hold your radstags, buddy, pal, friend of mine" I chirp in faux cheer, laying the charm on real thick and trying to straighten from my crouch. He starts to pull the trigger, making me hastily rethink the whole moving idea. "I'm Courier Six, out of New Vegas, just here to deliver a package. Thought you were my contact." The lie sounds half believable to my ears. And I do have my Mojave Express bag on my other hip.

But he's not buying it. "I don't know what the fuck a courier six is."

"Part mailman, part...ah...mailman."

"So why were you sneaking after me if you thought I was your 'contact'?"

I cast him my snarkiest grin. "I like to play hide and seek."

Before I can blink, he's swinging the rifle butt at my head. I duck and roll, bringing Maria up to aim at his face, while Rex tries to leap at his throat. Vault boy knocks him away with the rifle butt, the ting of metal on metal echoing in the still silent area, before bringing it back to point at me.

"Last chance, bitch, who the fuck are you?"

"Who would you like me to be?" I spit out automatically.

"I think you're one of those people who killed my wife. And took my son."

This is unexpected. I blink at him quizzically, gun not wavering in the slightest.

His eyes meet mine, trying to dig out some implication, searching for recognition of whatever the fuck he's talking about.

"My son, Shaun." He prompts.

"Nice name. But I hate kids. They're gross and usually covered in some kind of rat dropping."

"You're not a raider."

"I'm not a raider."

His rifle lowers slightly, before coming back to attention. "So who the fuck are you."

With more than a hint of pride and maybe more than a dash of bragging, I turn the brights on yet again, ready for the recognition and awe that my very beret inspires.. "I'm head bitch of the motherfucking Mojave wasteland. That's who."

His eyes show about as much recognition as I'm sure mine did when he asked about Shaun.

I groan, dropping the Silver Rush showgirl worthy smile. Great. I hate when my reputation doesn't precede me. "I run shit in New Vegas and I'm following you because I saw you get out of that Vault a few days ago. I also saw you interrogate a Gunner and kill him in cold blood which I'm, quite frankly, more than a tiny bit disturbed by. So I was going to shoot you in the knee and then the forehead. Much like you did back there. I'm into poetic justice."

"I was asking him about my son."

"Gunners and raiders aren't going to take anybody's son, idiot, they kill kids. Kids are always their first target."

His rifle wavers again.

"Before you ask, I don't know who would take your son. I don't give a flying Brahmin fart about the Commonwealth so I have to tell you; my ear has not been low to the ground on rumors of kidnapped babies. You can let me stand up now."

Vault boy's eyes narrow, and he starts to speak, when from the right of both of us comes a strange, echo laden voice. The type of voice I have night terrors about, frequently. The type of voice that only comes from behind one thing. Power armor.

"Both of you raider scumsuckers stand still."

My blood runs ice cold, bringing me back to a very harried, very frantic exit from a certain bunker I may or may not have turned into a mass graveyard for personal reasons. Not at all helping is the gentle reminder from my brain that the bounty on my head has indeed increased exponentially this year, due to thinking it would be quote unquote 'hilarious' to mail a piece of power armor to the current stronghold.

The Brotherhood of Steel found me.


	3. Lone Wanderer

The air is different high in the irradiated sky, where a man can see truly just how empty the wasteland is. The air has it's own smell, not borrowing from the unpleasantness from the scenery below. The clouds are closer, and although they retain their greyish-green color, they have texture now, like fluff from a dirty, pre-war pillow. Below lied the familiar terrain of his home, my comfort vanishing away as I move further… north? The computer attached to my wrist seems to think so. Looking back at The Capital I feel a mixture of relief and regret. Home is the safest place in the wasteland; to venture into the unknown was to seek death. How I've found himself up here is no surprise however, I had been a victim of wanderlust ever since I was a boy, and with newfound purpose it was only a matter of time before I would move on to newer places, but maybe not in such as way as this. The air in the sky was not the first new experience in my first new adventure in years, it was the vessel on which I am traveling.

The flying fortress known to the crew as the Prydwen was incredible feat of post-war revitalization, more than the only zeppelin in anybodies time. I watched them rebuild it; I had helped rebuild it, but even with perspective this airbourne monstrosity was a monument to the unshakable power of the Brotherhood of Steel. Sure, I'm no Paladin, but I do have a deep respect for them, for their unity and sometimes-misled sense of justice. I have stood with them since I emerged from my Vault years and years ago. With them I stood against the tyranny of the Enclave, and we were triumphant.

Do I stand with Maxson? I did with Lyons, until his dying day. This new Elder has fire in his heart, but he has blood on his mind too. Where Owyn was a man of progress, this man, an heir of times long since passed, is a man of conquest. Maybe I'm getting old, and see things too ideally, but Arthur is a boy with big shoes on. And a big coat. A really, really nice coat. I'd really like that coat. It's probably really warm.

Regardless, we drive on to the Commonwealth, where we will see a new future, hopefully one for the better. The crew has been talking about a new threat, word about some kind of robots I believe. I've dealt with metal before, with metal of my own. True, they brought me along as more of an honourary gesture. It doesn't seem like the brass doesn't want me meddling in this new land with their new pursuits.

Little do they know they gave up that option the second I walked aboard.

Boston feels more like home than I thought it would. I haven't crushed the deformed skull of a super-mutant in what feels like an entire age! I begin to fondly reminisce relishing the bloodlust as I dash from figure to figure, obliterating the foul creatures in waves of brutal gore. As a general rule, if I didn't keep up with cleaning my power armor, it would surely be permanently stained burnt crimson, painted with irradiated blood. I postulate this as the business end of my Super Sledge hammer demolishes a trio of muties in one fell swoop. If the Brotherhood had any ideas what kind of modifications I had made to my power armor I'd be in a power-brig. It's no matter, as they maintain both fear and respect for me and my swift justice.

Funny, now that I think about it, the green and slimy scourge have been my only company, for since we've landed the locals have stayed clear away from not just me, but the Brotherhood in its entirety. Sure, I'm clamouring about in my own non-Brotherhood painted power armor, but the tension is unsettling to say the least. I can tell they are not wanted here. How could I blame them? They're used to doing things their own way. They are all used to doing things their own way. Hell, I still am. Their attempt at a peacekeeping force may have begun poorly, but this has only just begun. Hell, apparently there is talk according to the recon team at Cambridge Police Station of a new leader taking the reigns with the locals militia. It sounds like hope, and it sounds wonderful. I may be here with them, but I believe in a people taking a stand for themselves, not being steamrolled into submission. If I believed that I-

And now I see trouble, my favorite pastime. I make a dash for the commotion, a mixture of gunfire and upset grunting. A couple of raiders having a go at each other? Wouldn't miss it for the world.

I arrive to the scene to find a large park with a quaint pond in the middle, where a woman has almost been apparently just pistol-whipped by a bloke in the head. Better yet, she's accompanied by her… robot dog friend. This is fascinating, truly. I don't know how she did it, but she's still okay, though she seems pretty startled, and right out-classed. She is dressed like a raider… but she also possesses a not-so-drugged-out air about her. Him on the other hand, he looks like he's had but a few fights, like he's from a settlement. Or something else…

"Both of you raider scum-suckers stand still!"

My police voice got their attention, enough to see what I thought I was eyeballing. Two genuine Vault-Tec Pip-Boys. These two are probably just some drifters, who jumped each other coincidentally. I elect to have some fun as I menacingly place the head of my Sledge in my hand.

"Who the hell are you two?" Intimidation. If I can put into their heads I'm Brotherhood I might be able to get them to behave. And hopefully scare the piss out them.

"Who am I? Who the hell are you?" The spitfire retorts. I focus on her, and see that she is terrified. Maybe she had a bad run in with a Paladin?

"You're those guys who came in on the zeppelin. I've heard people talking about you, the Brotherhood. What's going on here?" This man is discovering the world still. He may very well be a Vault Dweller, like I was so many years back. I like him immediately, he's-

My thought process is interrupted by uproarious, and frankly obnoxious, laughter coming from the woman. I don't know if she's amused or just making a point, to… someone.

"YOU HAVEN'T EVEN HEARD OF… OH… Oh God that's funny shit. I know you just crawled out of a hole in the ground, but that… ha… is just stupid."

I take a two large steps forward at them; they stance up immediately. "I see the way you're looking at me. Like you've done something wrong. Care to share, before you and Spot become mincemeat?"

Movement. Tension. Sweat drips down her face. If she was playing it cool before, she's stopped. "I… Where I'm from, the Brotherhood is a force to be feared, a force of awe and… and…"

"Where is that?"

"The… um… The Mojave?" She's testing me.

And, funny enough, for good reason. The chapter out there disappeared, blown from the grid completely.

"My intelligence on the matter suggests otherwise. I am not going to ask again, so just tell me who the hell you people are."

"Lucy Grey, Courier Six, Mojave," she replies immediately.

"Jack, Sanctuary Hills. Pleasure."

I disengage the locks on the helmet on my power armor, removing it as a show of good faith. I can't scare them to death forever. "Auxiliary Paladin Drake, at your service. Now why don't we wander a bit and you can tell me aaaaaaall about what you too are up to. I was feeling a bit lonesome anyway


	4. Sole Survivor: 2

Stucco and dust exploded beside his head in convex spirals. He pressed himself against the wall, gripping his rifle with one hand, tearing the clasp on his hip pouch free with the other. He found what he was looking for, swiveling to his right. The wingnuts and assorted hardware bristling from his leather armor rasped against the brick as he braced himself, cocking an arm back.

"Grey!"

The courier rolled over in her position in an alcove, partially obscured by the rust-eaten husk of a water boiler. She stuck her head out, scowling quizzically. Jack held the magazine aloft for a moment, then threw it underhand. The courier caught it deftly, emptying the red double-ought rounds from the disc-shaped magazine into her lap. She slotted them one by one into the loading port of her weapon, before slamming the fore-end back with a clack and laying the weapon up over the lip of the wall. She pumped away rapidly, sending a furious wall of buckshot downrange, screaming insults and threats all the while.

Jack followed suit, hastily sighting new targets through the underpowered scope as he worked the bolt furiously. The wood-stocked hunting rifle bucked in his arms, flurries of leaves swirling underfoot as the Boston autumn carried on around them unconcerned. A round caught one armored assailant by the shoulder, spinning him about with a puff of pink mist. He gritted his teeth, chambered another round.

Their circumstances were looking increasingly dire. They had glimpsed the ambushers waiting in the ruins as they'd emerged from the woods, but not before they were well out of the relative safety of the treeline. The raiders were growing bolder, advancing swiftly through the clearing, taking full advantage of the downed vertibird and the cover it provided. Rounds of every type hailed down on their position, kicking up chips of red brick, dousing them in white dust as ancient mortar gave way to lead. Then, for a moment, it seemed to cease. Jack craned his beck to see.

Laser fire crackled from beyond the treeline, fiery red trails biting into the raiders' flank. Based on the frequency of shots, a lone shooter. But the confusion generated amongst the raider ranks was the advantage they desperately needed. The bandits focused their fire on the woods, rifle rounds tearing into the trees. Jack leveled the rifle, put two raiders down in quick succession. The courier followed suit. A blast from her shotgun peppered one attacker, caught the corner of a Molotov bottle in his hand as the leather-clad raider stepped out from behind the vertibird's ruined fuselage. Amber flame followed blue as it poured out onto the stony ground, lapping up between the patches of dry reeds to singe the boots of bystanders. They yelped and dove aside, shouting in a panic as the flames seared the dry earth around them.

A bellowing voice emanated from the wall to Jack's left, echoing across the field. "Make ready, cowards! Your death comes today!"

Paladin Drake stepped out from his position of concealment, casting aside his rifle. His power armor gleamed in the pale sunlight, shallow divots in the steel showing impact points from dmage taken in a hundred battles. He took up his immense sledgehammer, his pride and joy, charging headlong across the field, bellowing as he went. Jack looked on in wonderment. The raiders scrambled to form a defense, drawing rusty knives and shouting obscenities. The paladin scattered them like bowling pins, crashing into them with a fury. The courier cackled delightedly from her position behind the boiler, taking the odd potshot at any raiders who managed to flee. But few escaped the reach of the sledge as the paladin swung it about in a lethal arc, brutally dismembering the would-be ambushers. They looked on as the rocket-powered hammer bit into the raider chief's side, emptying crimson entrails onto the thirsty soil. The raider leader clawed at them ineffectually, groaning.

Jack vaulted nimbly over the wall, advancing across the field, gunfire no longer directed anywhere near him. He shouldered the rifle and drew his pistol, checking the wounded raiders for weapons as they sprawled out in the weeds, wheezing blood through gaping mouths, clutching at collapsed ribcages, broken femurs. Grey advanced through the horror as well, sidestepping a decapitated raider, looking a bit sick. Rex paced happily along by her side, looking like a good boy. Courier and dog stopped beside the wrecked vertibird cockpit to witness the melee. The paladin spun about a few meters ahead, drenched in blood to the wrists of his armor. Jack stepped well around them, eyes on the treeline to the east. A pale silhouette was just visible in the undergrowth, crouched behind the sparse canopy of yellowed leaves. He raised the rifle to his shoulder.

"Identify yourself, stranger." The rattle and hiss of dead leaves in the persistent breeze was his only answer.

"I'll ask again once. Stand and identify yourself, or catch two center mass."

The figure stood slowly, hands raised. A curious mechanical sound, like a hydraulic pump, accompanied his movements. The stranger stepped out from behind the bushes. Jack tensed, then lowered his rifle, relieved. The mechanical man gazed back at him ruefully with nixie-bulb eyes of glowing yellow, plasticine hands held high in a reassuring gesture of peace. The voice that emanated from his mouth was distinctly human.

"Well, good afternoon to you too, Jack."

They sat in a semicircle, the fire crackling at their feet as they busied themselves with their various tasks. Dedication to preparation was universal if one were to continue to survive. Maintaining your equipment became second nature. Jack sat with his back to a fallen oak tree, the bolt and striker assembly of his rifle laid out neatly before him on a tartan placemat. Opposite him, Lucy Grey arranged the contents of her ammunition bag with one hand, patting Rex's head affectionately with the other. Beside her, Drake sat with his helmet in his hand, toying with the focus calibrations in the visor as the rest of his power armor stood silently behind him, casting a menacing shadow over the surrounding woods. Jack fished about in a hip pouch, found the little bottle of bore cleaner, the little brush bound to it with a strip of duct tape. Separating them, he uncapped the bottle and went to work, side-eying the synthetic detective, who sat quietly beside him looking into the fire. His yellow cathode eyes were unblinking, his chest rising and falling in a convincing imitation of breathing. Jack wiped streaks of black carbon from the rifle's innards, cleared his throat.

"Something on your mind, Nick?"

The synth didn't look up from the fire. "Oh, just musing. You know."

"Yeah."

They left it at that. Grey continued to busy herself with her ammunition, slotting the mis-matched nine millimeter rounds into a single-stack magazine. Her chrome-plated pistol rested in the grass beside her, the distinctive grips decorated with mock-Renaissance likenesses of the Virgin Mary.

Jack glanced over at it, motioning with the brush. "Interesting design."

Grey grinned. She paused her reloading efforts, taking a pull from the bottle of Bobrov's Best at her side. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

"Yep. Belonged to the man who shot me. So I used it to kill him. Then I used it to kill a man named Caesar."

Nick's eyebrows rose appreciatively. "An interesting historical juxtaposition, there. Sordid, true, but certainly interesting."

The courier chuckled and patted the side of the weapon affectionately. The laughter dwindled. They sat in silence once more, their cookfire crackling. Warding away the dark. Drake peered at the detective across the flames. Eventually he caught Nick's eye, who raised his head at last, frowning.

"Help you with something?"

The paladin shook his head.

"Nope. Just curious."

"What about?" Valentine chuckled. "Oh, it couldn't be the whole robot man thing, could it?"

The paladin kept his expression neutral. "I've got nothing against your kind."

Nick laughed hollowly. "Last I heard, brotherhood doctrine doesn't exactly jive with 'my kind' ."

The paladin shrugged. "I'm from an older breed of Brotherhood. Out East, we didn't have any beef with androids. We had a lot more to contend with than a few metal humanoids."

Nick scoffed. "Well, too bad your new pals don't feel the same." He stood, stretching, though his rubber faux-muscles needed no relief. He stepped over to kneel beside Rex, scratching him behind the ears. "At least where we're going, they appreciate a few freaks. Right, boy?"

Rex barked happily in reply, the robo-dog's brain sloshing wetly about in its illuminated plexiglass housing.

They picked through the ruins, spread out in a loose formation with the paladin on point. They moved slowly, stepped carefully, on the lookout for traps, mines, irradiated wildlife. They were at the dead center of super mutant territory. They had already encountered a few, from afar. Jack had affixed the big can-type suppressor to the muzzle of his rifle, the old Corvega oil filter stuffed with fiberglass insulation spaced with aluminum baffles. It let out a flat pop each time he picked off an unsuspecting sentry, laying in the high drifts of dirt and debris with the courier as she worked the bolt on her NCR-issue sniper rifle. Now, only a mile rested between their rag-tagpl party and the neon gates of Goodneighbor.

"Shit." Grey paced along the tarmac, pausing to rummage through ruined cars as they went. "These have all been picked clean."

Drake made a dismissive sound. "Don't bother. The Brotherhood already dispatched a platoon out here, a few months back."

To the left of the column, Nick rolled his eyes, sighing with a slight whirr. "Of course they did."

Drake ignored him. "They made a sweep, came up with nothing. Everything outside of Diamond City for a half-dozen miles has been laid bare."

Jack shook his head, sidestepping an overturned motorcycle. He squinted down at it with interest, scanning the rust-coated innards of it's sleek fission reactor, then moved along. He cradled his rifle in the crook of his arm and lit a cigarette, inhaling deeply, letting the smoke out easy as he stowed the paper packet. "So. Goodneighbor. What should we expect?"

Nick glanced over, skeletal hands stuffed in the pockets of his faded trench coat. He shrugged. "No worse than you'd see anywhere else in the Commonwealth, really. Mayor Hancock and his goons are just as deadly as, say, a pack of radscorpions." He paused thoughtfully. "Radscorpions with submachine guns, actually." He pulled his worn fedora tighter over his forehead and fished out his own smokes. "But at least they look out for their own. The good Mayor has a certain pride in taking in outcasts."

Grey stared at the synth, watching him place the cigarette between his plastic lips and light it with an old flip-lighter. He took a long drag, exhaling twin tendrils of blue smoke through his nostrils.

"How do you even do that?", the courier asked incredulously.

Nick turned to her, taking another long drag. "Hmm?"

Drake looked over at Jack. "So what exactly is it about this den of thieves that's so important? You said you have evidence of your son's whereabouts. I'd be interested in hearing more."

Nick adjusted his fedora atop his skull. "What makes you so interested all of a sudden, fella?"

The paladin favored the synth with a neutral grin. "Call it curiosity."

Jack took a few more steps as they entered a semicircle of blown-out Corvegas, the hulking frames of the ancient sedans stretched over with rust-pitted fuselage in shades of red and black and green. He dropped to a knee and unshouldered his rucksack, the one he'd been issued two hundred and twenty years earlier. He'd found it just where he'd left it, in a drawer in his home in Sanctuary. The canvas had withstood the ages surprisingly well. The others crowded close, except for Nick, who kept stood uncomfortably off to the side, willfully avoiding looking at the ruck as he scanned the horizon. Jack reached his arm down into the depths of the pack, grunting as he felt around the bottom. He came up clutching the plastic grip of a prewar coffee pot. Inside the grimy glass, a chunk of brain was congealing. A length of brain stem was coiled around it, a sad chunk of grey studded with small metal probes. Like a dollop of ground beef bedecked with miscelanneous machine parts.

Drake's eyebrows arched skyward. Grey was beside herself, pointing an accusing finger at the organ in it's makeshift urn.

"Is that a goddamn brain?"

Jack shrugged. "Most of it, yeah."

The paladin straightened. "Ah, to whom does this belong?"

Jack sloshed it about in the bottom of the coffee pot. "Belonged to a mercenary who did me wrong. Kellogg. This is about all that's left of him."

Grey leaned in, staring down into the pot with morbid curiosity. "You've been carrying a brain around with you this entire time?"

Jack shrugged again. "Yeah."

Behind them, Nick stole a furtive glance over his shoulder, then quickly looked away again. "Can you put that sick thing away, please? I believe we have somewhere to be."

Jack stowed the brain in his ruck, zipping it up And throwing it carelessly over his shoulder. He hefted his rifle, grasping it at the low-ready and setting off. Paladin and courier followed suit, exchanging an uneasy glance as they followed after the vault dweller.

The series of alleyways leading to the gates of Goodneighbor were blessedly free of threats. A stale breeze rang hollowly through the empty sockets of the skulls that decorated each street corner, the grisly trophies repurposed by super mutants as a form of modern decor. Nick ducked a low-hanging fishing net filled with dismembered limbs, nearly slipping in an errant blood puddle. "Very chic," he said drily, stepping over the sun-bleached ribcage of some long-dead animal. The last few meters before the gates were blessedly free of gore. They gathered between the makeshift buffers of shredded tires and sharpened planks, passing single-file through the faded metal door. Inside, ghouls in pre-war suits stood about lazily, smoking cigars or muttering to one another conspiratorially. A few craned their necks to study the newcomers, assessing their potential as friend or foe. Most held their submachine guns loosely or slung them over their shoulders, paying the newcomers relatively little mind.

A row of shops sat quietly in the morning mist, illuminated by flickering neon in every color. A figure emerged from the mist, clad in filthy raider leathers. Scars crisscrossed his bare scalp. He meandered forward, hefting a tire iron in one hand. Grey leaned in, whispering to Nick. "This your mayor?"

Nick shook his head. The man stopped a few paces ahead, sneering at the synth.

"Well, well. It's the detective. Tracking down another wayward husband to his mistress?"

Nick chuckled coldly. "Why? Someone stand you up?"

"Tryin' that, whaddya call it? 'Evasive language', on me?" He turned to the others. "And who are you, huh? Valentine's new dicks-in-training?"

Drake pulled himself up in his power armor, fixing the stranger with a stare. "That's none of your concern."

The man frowned. "Oh, it's not, huh? Well, with that attitude, you're gonna be in the market for a little 'insurance'. You're in luck! I got a special offer for some insurance for partners of the Great Gumshoe here." He stepped forward, one hand hefting the tire iron, the other straying to the ten-mil on his hip. A voice pierced the fog, a dry rasp.

"Now, now, Finn." The grifter twisted about to face the newcomer, hand still hovering over the butt of his pistol. The ghoul emerged from the neon haze, coat flapping lazily about his ankles. He stared into the man named Finn from beneath an ancient leather tricorn hat.

"Nick Valentine makes a rare visit to town, and you're hassling his friends here with that extortion crap?" He nodded to the detective. "Good to see you again, Nick."

Nick tipped his cap in return. "Hancock."

Finn gestured with his tire iron. "What d'you care? They ain't like us." His fingers brushed the grip of his weapon. Hancock glanced down at the pistol.

"No love for your mayor, Finn? I said, let em go."

Finn spat. "You're soft, Hancock. You keep letting outsiders walk all over us, one day there's gonna be a new mayor."

The ghoul raised his hands, fingers splayed in deference. He favored Finn with a gracious smile. "C'mon man. This is me we're talking about! Lemme tell you something." He stepped forward, placing one hand on the Finn's shoulder. The grifter looked unsure, hesitating slightly. It was all the time the mayor needed. A switchblade appeared in his hand, a flash of chrome in the haze. He drove it into the grifter's gut, quick as a striking snake, over and over as Finn let out a groan. He slid to his knees, issuing a wet gurgle.

He collapsed in a miserable heap at the Hancock's feet. The mayor stepped over him, pocketing the bloody knife. He spread his arms in welcome, smiling broadly. "You folks alright?"

Jack glanced down at the corpse. "We're fine. Thanks for taking care of that."

Hancock adjusted his tricorn. "Not a problem. Now, don't let this little incident taint your view of our little community. "Goodneighbor's of the people, for the people, you feel me?" He eyed the paladin standing over them in his Brotherhood power armor. "Everyone's welcome."

Grey rolled her eyes. "'Of the people, for the people'? Jesus."

Hancock grinned. "Heh. I can tell I'm gonna like you already." He motioned to the rows of shops in the little courtyard. Jazz music wafted softly from beyond the alleyway where Hancock had appeared. "Just consider this little town your home away from home. Just so long as you remember who's in charge."


	5. Courier 6: 2

"So…." I clear my throat, stepping in front of the group with my arms outstretched, causing them to stop walking. "We need to pause. Take a little break. Because that maniac we just saw? I have a meeting with him that's oh, about 2 weeks late."

"Yeah you might have mentioned that once or three hundred times…" Drake mutters, innocently poking at his pipboy as I cast a glare his way.

"So can you guys stay out of trouble for just twenty minutes while I finish this?"

A chorus of "probably not" meets my ears.

Jack even has the audacity to crack a rare smile. "Either you come with or we leave you to the crazy mayor."

"You," I point a finger at him. "Do not get a say. You have a brain in your backpack."

"I've heard weirder things about you…" nick mumbles, also looking at Drakes pipboy with stoic interest.

"My enhanced brain is not a part of this discussion, thank you very much."

"Enhanced brain?" Jack looks disgusted.

"Yeah enhanced brain, Jack. To make a very long story very short I ended up in a crater and these giant floating heads took my brain."

"She had sex with one of the heads." Nick whispers to Drake who nods like he's known all along. He probably does. Brother Elijah and Christine were in the crater too. Probably sneaked into my living space and read the diary.

"So why does a brain in a jar bother you again?"

"Because I talked to mine and it was not a pleasant experience given the bullet still in said brain and quite frankly I still have therapy for that whole ordeal."

Jack coughs to hide a laugh at my expense and reaffixes his face to the standard angry glare I'm too used to. "So how about this. You come with me to the Memory Den, we do this and then we can wait for you while you meet crazy stab happy mayor back there."

I throw my hands up in defeat and gesture for them all to go ahead, knowing I won't get any support from the other two. And dammit all, this asshole reminds me so much of Boone that I can't help but take him seriously. It's the shaved head really

Nick leads us around a back alley to a neon red sign proclaiming Memory Den, above some lush looking building with wide double doors.

I'm calling it right now. This place is a front for hookers.

We enter the building, filled with opulent wallpapered walls, lush fabrics on dark wood tables, lots of red and gold and dark wood with strange pods leading to an elevated area laden with lounges.

Drake catches my eye and mouths "hookers." I nod emphatically, giving Jack a look of disgust. Come on dude.

But we head into the main room full of the pods, which seem to knock Drake into silence. His face seems pale, the scar over his eyebrow standing out as he clenches his jaw. A woman, older, in a purple robe with blonde hair styled in a classic coif, stands to greet us.

"Well, well, Mr Valentine...I thought you had forgotten about me…"she purrs, voice seeming to be permanently set to sex kitten mode.

"May have walked out on the Den, but I'd never walk out on you," Nick purrs right back.

"Hmmmmph. Amari's downstairs, you big flirt."

I decide to ignore her as she ignores me and look around the pods which hold a few people. One holds a bald man in tattered suit, sunglasses on even in the dimly lit room. His mouth seems downcast in his trance. I could have sworn I've seen him before.

"Grey, we're going!" Drakes voice breaks into my musing and I walk away from the pod, tailing the group as they walk down a hidden door into a much brighter lit staircase.

A woman, also older but in a stained lab coat and smart suit greets us. Her voice is brisk, with an accent I've never heard before. "Jack. You've returned."

Jack steps forward, speaking in hushed tones and the woman follows suit, their mumbling too low for even me to hear. Out of the corner of my eye I see Drake casually reach out and swipe some stimpaks off a nearby counter, as nonchalantly as you please. Nobody else seems to notice.

Drake meets my gaze and shrugs as he grabs a bag of rad-x and quickly squirrels it away in one of the many compartments all over his suit.

Fucking brotherhood.

The lady in the lab coat suddenly steps away from jack in horror. "What's this? This isn't a brain, this is….wait. That's the hippocampus! And this thing attached to it...a neural interface?" She takes the jar of brain from his pack with a sense of reverence.

"Those circuits look awfully familiar," Nick mumbles, actually looking into the jar.

Come to think of it, this brain doesn't look much like mine.

"I'm not surprised," the lady muses, turning the jar this way and that in the bright lights, causing shine of wires and chrome. "From what I've seen, all Institute technology has a similar architecture."

As though on cue, Drake and I blurt out, "institute?"

Jack casts an outraged glare our way. "I'll explain later." He hisses through clenched teeth before turning back to the doctor. "Nicks an older model of synth," at these words, Drake looks far more interested. I still don't know what in the goddamn a synth is so I decide to keep listening. "Is he compatible?"

The lady snaps her fingers, grinning at Jack. "That's exactly what I was thinking! If we're lucky, it should hook right in!"

But she pauses, looking back at the hunk of meat in a jar between her hands, like it holds all the secrets. "But even if this works, Mister Valentine would be taking on a tremendous amount of risk...we're talking about wiring something to his brain." Emotions seem to battle in her eyes.

Nick raises his skeletal hand to silence her. "Don't worry about me Amari, let's do it."

"You really think this will work, Nick?" Jack near whispers, a look I've never seen in him etched across his face. Hope.

"No idea. But we got a missing kid on the line. That's worth the risk." Nick gestures impatiently at amari, who sets to work quickly as he sits in a bloodied and beat up chair. "If I start cackling like an old grizzled mercenary, pull me out, ok?"

Hours later and I find myself helping Drake half carry Jack out from the bowels of the Memory Den as he mumbles that he's just fine. Even though he vomited all over the nice rug in the front hallway just a second ago. Then slipped in it. And fell into an antique desk.

"What was all that shit?" I hiss at drake.

He looks like he's debating on explaining it to me. Then finally opens his mouth as we step into the streets. "I've been in one of those pods. It can make you relive things. It can make you do things. And Jack just went into the memories of his wife's killer."

"Well thank you for the in depth explanation as to why you almost pissed yourself when you had to sit in one." I point down the alley we came from. "There's a bar over here, let's take hero boy in here to recover."

Drake agrees and we enter.

Down a broken escalator, past a ghoul in a fedora, to dropping him on a broken stool in front of a floating Mr Handy. Jack barely seems recovered. He's pale as a sheet. Lips almost blue. Whiskey should help.

Drake goes to order from the Handy and I, with a big smile on my face, lean in. "You better tell me what the fuck is going on Jack because right now I'm about to ditch your ass and run. This is some Sierra Madre ghost projection type bullshit and I'm not about to play that game again."

He tries to glare, but coming from a man still shaking, it seems almost sad. "Later, Grey."

"How much later, Deckard?"

"Tomorrow." We lean away as Drake returns with three bottles of a murky alcohol in greasy green bottles.

"We have toilet wine!" He crows, setting it down before jack, who greedily grabs one and starts choking it down.

Fed up with these clowns and their secret operative bullshit that I could have sworn I left behind when I kicked the NCR out, I turn on the stool to mess with my pipboy.

The second I do, a radio signal squawks into the room.

Five minutes later I'm out the door and headed back towards the Memory Den

"Goodneighbor's crazy! Thefts, murders. Worse! Sometimes you just gotta escape a little to make it through the day!"

"Escape? What do you mean?"

"Reliving old memories. Like Thanksgiving 2071! Ma made a twelve pound turkey. And then we all listened to 'The Silver Shroud vs. Captain Cosmos'. Even pa was there."

A brief pause.

"you ever listen to the Silver Shroud? That's who we need. No matter how bleak things got, he'd save the day."

"Sounds...familiar. So, seems like people are finally recovering and rebuilding from the bomb over here in the neck of your woods."

"Maybe in some parts. Like Diamond City. But over here….we got a ways to go. I got a question for ya. What if...The Silver Shroud was real? With his black trench coat? And gleaming silver submachine gun?"

"'What if the Silver Shroud was real?'" I mutter to myself in a very bad impression of the sweet ghoul, Kent. "If he was real he probably wouldn't be in a goddamn storage closet."

The thumping on the already fragile door i'm leaned against seems to increase. Rex whines.

"Yes Rex, you were right, this was a goddamn shit of an idea. I thought this would be fun."

Rex huffs, looking to me for some sort of directive.

"Tell you the truth Rex, I got nothing. If you've got a better idea than waiting them out then I suggest you pipe up."

The thuds from the door increase in response to my spoken words. Damn ghouls. I've never liked them. And I have one as a handyman, and one as an entertainer in the theater. Raul and Dean Domino. Raul works there for fun, Dean Domino works there for trying to blow my damn head off with planted radios. Nuh uh. Not on my watch, buddy.

What I wouldn't give to just be dealing with holographic ghosts and a murderous brotherhood elder right now though. Because of Kent, I'm stuck in the storage closet of a comic shop after tripping a clapping monkey toy and bringing approximately seven billion tons of ghoul bullshit down on my head, conservatively. All so I can find an outfit.

I can see Boone now. "You're too soft. You can't help everyone." Said after locking a chef in a fridge and dragging a good old Southern asshole out from under a casino. And after rescuing a talking computer to make a Nightkin woman in a bouffant wig release Raul. After that stupid NCR sunbeam bullshit too. Come to think of it, he might actually be right. Damn him.

Before I can bust out the deck of cards I have to play War with Rex (who usually wins), the thumping subsides. A shout, followed by the howls of ghouls.

"Taste my hammer, you withered bastards!"

A clack of a rifle.

Oh fuck me, the Hero Boy brigade is here.

I roll my eyes and stare at the ceiling for a moment before standing, kicking open the door and unholstering Maria, taking shots at a few of the ghouls not currently swarming the giant in a power suit and Hero Boy himself. Heads explode.

In moments, it's over, Drake's hammer smashing down on one last glowing ghoul and practically splitting him in half. Making a note to try more physical weapons, I wave at the gore encrusted saviors.

"Howdy!"

Jack looks furious, about to raise his gun on me, but Drake speaks first. "You found a comic shop!"

"Fuck yeah I found a comic shop."

"You find any Grognak comics?" Jack quickly elbows Drake, who clears his throats and switches back to business mode. "I mean, what the hell are you doing?"

"Attempting to do anything besides waiting on Jack and the mysterious plot I'm now all wrapped up in but still don't really know what the hell is going on. Glad to see you're up and not puking by the way." I wiggle my fingers at Jack. He flips me off.

"You can't just run off like that, you could compromise our position." Drake coughs, sounding very much like he's repeating a rant someone else has been saying for hours.

"Killing ghouls is not allowed?"

"Don't ask me, he's the military guy. I just came along for the comics."

Jack finally speaks. "You can't just run off whenever you feel like it! You almost got killed and you're damn lucky we came along, now I'm behind on tracking down my son, or have you forgotten that?"

"I had it all under control, Deckard. And we can totally find your son after I get this super special outfit and give it back to this guy I met." I step gingerly over a desiccated ghoul corpse and start towards the stairs to the next level.

"So you're not just being an idiot?" He asks, still angry.

I poke my head back down the staircase to look at him. "Uh, no? Dude offered five hundred caps, and let's face it, you're not exactly rolling in the dough. Plus, possible ally and possible information."

Drake raises his hand slightly. "What outfit are we looking for?"

"I dunno, something about a Silver Shroud." Keeping my pace up the stairs, I hear them start to follow me.

Jack actually sounds excited. "Oh, I know what this place is now. I used to listen to the Silver Shroud with Nora before Shawn was born. They were going to film a show here."

"That's pretty much what Kent said, but with more childlike enthusiasm and starry eyedness." A ghoul rises from the floor in front of me and I take a quick shot.

"You're looking for the costume?"

"Well, this guy said he made a submachine gun too. You can have that, I don't like new guns, but the outfit sounds snazzy."

Drake casually smashes a ghoul attempting to rise from the office floor. "We didn't have any comics where I was growing up. Except for one. Grognak the Barbarian."

"I was always a fan of Meeting People myself."

Jack snorts, resting his gun over my shoulder to get a better aim on a ghoul. The ringing shot would have ruined my ears if not for the fact they were destroyed long ago. "You like a periodical? That's not a comic, Grey."

"Says the man with such a large stick up his ass. What's your favorite then?"

"Astounding Adventures," he sounds almost incredulous. Like it's somehow obvious under the hardass persona that he would even relax enough to read.

Drake snorts. "That's a kids comic."

"What's Grognak then, a novel?"

"It's a highly sophisticated and very adult comic full of musing about the human condition." Haughtily snorting, Drake leads us up the final flight of stairs towards what I can only assume is the studio. A darkened room, with a spotlight on what looks like a backdrop of a cartoon version of Boston.

"I took Nora here the second she found out it was going to be a show." Jack whispers, far off in some memory. "Our second anniversary."

"Quite the romantic, aren't you." Whispering back, I lock onto a mannequin in a darkened suit, silver tie, fedora and -best of all- a black trench coat. Snazzy indeed.

"Silver Shroud was her favorite. She always wanted to be the damsel partnering with the shroud."

"You know what jack, you're not so bad. Still have an impressive ego for a man wearing a yellow helmet and black face paint but you're not all bad."

Drake hushes us, pointing at a glowing one, hidden behind the backdrop. I gesture at him to go ahead. He nods and creeps forward.

Unsurprisingly, the green oozing menace awakens and rises to face him, followed by at least three more ghouls popping up. Practically child's play for me and Jack.

One, two, three shots to each head and they fall, empty screeching, as Drake pulls his signature hammer to the stomach move, eviscerating the final ghoul.


End file.
